Comments on: Prot Paladin Tank Combat Ratings

By: Agorg

Agorg — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:08:50 +0000

Yes!

You are absolutely correct, I believe it’s mentioned later in the series as well but thanks for bringing it up here.

By: Eagle

Eagle — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:30:36 +0000

As from patch 3.2.2 Touched by the Light talent now provides 20/40/60% of the paladin’s strength as spell power instead of 10/20/30% of the paladin’s stamina

By: Leeroi

Leeroi — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:44:48 +0000

Let me correct myself: I took way too long to start setting up 2 tanking sets, one for EH (Effective Health – focusing on mitigation and stamina) and one for Avoidance. Many top Pally tanks would argue for a third set (Block/threat) and even a 4th combo set (generic MT set that gives a solid combination of all stats – essentially your ‘best’ gear regardless of flavor). The newer bosses are too “one way” for a single tank set to get you through: that is, for some bosses you need to use the set that gives you massive effective health even if the gear is a lower iLevel or simply of lesser quality. Ditto for the Avoidance set. My ‘balanced’ approach works great – but only so far. Ulduar has proven me wrong. I am now wishing I had saved all the lvl 80 gear I gained but replaced….

By: Thram

Thram — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:22:45 +0000

There are interesting changes to the dodge/parry scaling in the new patch notes. (Dodge rating will give less %dodge, and parry will give more so that the two are on par before DR.) What I've been seeing (http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f14/52401-parry-dodge-change-question.html) suggests that a ratio of 2:1.875:1 (defense rating: dodge rating: parry rating) is what we should strive for to maximize our avoidance stats. Of course effective health is good too, so it's still a bit of a game to play with gear to get it right. *With that ratio, remember that defense rating gives you defense in a step-wise manner --- so that there are times when you'll get more benefit from defense than others depending on where your defense numbers currently stand. If you're not in a position to take full advantage of defense, just gem/enchant for dodge/parry in a 1.875:1 ratio.* It's interesting to note that druids are really hit over the head with the dodge/agility nerf but that paladins and warriors will benefit a bit more because of the block buff.

By: Lawbringer

Lawbringer — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:14:04 +0000

You’re about to get conscripted into a writing position if you’re not careful there James. Send me something!

By: Leeroi

Leeroi — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:32:21 +0000

(1) You mention that both Parry and Dodge are subject to diminishing returns, but Parry loses value MUCH faster than Dodge – to the point that a Prot. Pally should never “aim” for Parry. You will end up with a fair amount of Parry regardless of what you aim for, because it is on the gear you will be picking up anyway, but Dodge is a much preferred stat.

(2) Pallies have a much harder time generating massive health pools, unlike our brothers-in-arms Warriors, DK’s, and Druids. Despite gemming/enchanting for Stamina as much as I can, I *have* to compensate for this with avoidance and mitigation. For me, only having 5 Ulduar bosses on farm status, I just haven’t run into a lot of gear items where I am forced to choose between 2 pieces of gear of equal valuable, but one favored Avoidance and the other Mitigation. I have some (shield and legs, notably), but not a whole lot. When I find an upgrade, it is so far such a good upgrade across the board that I use it exclusively – that is, I will use an Avoidance upgrade in my Mitigation set because keeping the old Mitigation piece is a significant downgrade in overall stats. Maybe the uber-elite tanks are forced to choose between them, but I have found the best “value” to be a mix of the two, especially when taking into account diminishing returns.

By: James M

James M — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:48:10 +0000

Straight from Blizzard’s current PTR 3.2 notes:

Resilience: No longer reduces the amount of damage done by damage-over-time spells, but instead reduces the amount of all damage done by players by the same proportion. The other effects of resilience (reducing critical chance, critical damage and mana drain effects) have not changed.

Sounds to me like it still reduces the critical chance…in fact, if anything it sounds like its a more attractive stat(not that i would purposefully stack it but could be useful/fun to try some stuff with it)

By: James M

James M — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:44:18 +0000

it is double damage on melee crit. Be careful not to think of crushing blow which is 1.5 damage, but was eliminated in wrath raids, as enemy mobs have to be 4+ levels higher to score a crushing blow.

By: James M

James M — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:42:11 +0000

blessing of sanctuary has always given mana on dodge block and parry. The reworking of the blessing just also gives 10% stamina too, and that is simply so that all tanks will want that blessing instead of Blessing of Kings. Blizzard wants it so that even a DK, who wont get the mana benefit will want this because it gives 10% stamina and 3% DR.

I understand their point, i haven’t used sanctuary in almost forever unless we have 2-4 paladins in a raid/party so i can get all the buffs. Kings is much better, because it gives me more damage and it gives the extra hp, which is really what paladins want because of the argent defender range.

Funny story on the healers looking the other way…i was in a 10 man naxx run the other day just for fun, and we always do the achievement way on the Grand Widow, simply because its a little faster as long as it works. Well i was taking almost no damage during the 1 min non-enraged phase, just needing a renew/rejuv to keep me at full. Well the healers decided to focus on the raid damage and poisons, and they forgot about me after she hit enrage. We almost downed her anyway, i was just waiting for healing throwing out LoH, Divine Protection, kept Sacred shield up…and i just never see any healing numbers cross my screen. Just a funny story that we get to laugh about now, a testament to good high avoidance and timely cooldowns

By: James M

James M — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:30:33 +0000

no. warriors are fine, shockwave and the like actually make them one of the premier aoe tanks atm, the only reason paladins are considered the best aoe tanks is because of nostalgia from BC. Consecration is a DoT, so we have to work on keeping aoe threat from the mages/boomkins/s priests/warlocks.

I worked as one of the two aoe tanks on the Sartharion 3d heroic encounter before 3.1 came out, and the warrior would pull the Tenebron whelps because the instant aoe threat that he could generate was much faster and better than the damage consecration would do, especially because with the amount of fire adds around too, the healing the tanks need is incredible, and consecration cannot instantly outthreat the healing.

HoS and HoL are painful instances regardless of your tank, but what i have found is that in wrath instances, if your dps is below par, you will have problems and it looks like the tank is underperforming, even though they are doing everything they can/should be doing. I know a lot of people hate them, but take a look at the overall dps meters if you have issues. A good tank should be doing 1500-2000 dps, and good dps should be over 2k. Bare minimums for heroics are 1200 for dps and 1000 for tanks. A lot of times these days i have people running their bad alts in heroics pulling 1000-1500, but i ignore it because i have a good dps or two thats over 3k. Just look at the averages.